LaGuardia Airport warned people to confirm their flights with airlines after flights into the airport were being delayed Friday because of a staffing shortage caused by federal workers calling in sick, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Credit: News 12 Long Island

Air travelers in the Northeast experienced widespread flight delays Friday thanks to a shortage of air traffic controllers on a day when federal workers didn't get their paychecks for the second time because of the partial government shutdown. 

 LaGuardia Airport took the biggest hit in the metropolitan region, with more than half its daily flights disrupted, according to the Port Authority. At least 47 flights were canceled and more than 580 flights were delayed an average of more than an hour, officials said. 

The Federal Aviation Administration curtailed operations at some airports Friday morning as more transportation and security employees refused to report to work.

"This morning shortly after 9 a.m., the FAA imposed a ground stop — halting all inbound flights at their origins — at LaGuardia Airport due to a shortage of air traffic controllers at centers in Washington D.C. and Jacksonville, FL," Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said in a statement. "These centers … are responsible for safely guiding en-route aircraft operating on flight plans at high altitudes within a given region of airspace. The lack of adequate staff at these facilities meant an inability to provide this service to the normal volume of aircraft operating throughout the eastern seaboard. To cope, they had to limit traffic, creating a massive ripple effect."

At nightfall Friday, some arrivals were still facing average delays of 75 minutes, said the FAA, warning that some departures may also be affected.

Newark Liberty Airport racked up at least 40 canceled flights and almost 300 delays, the Port Authority said, while Kennedy Airport saw more than 230 flight delays. 

The FAA's Traffic Management Program went into effect shortly before 10 a.m. at LaGuardia, according to its Air Traffic Control System Command Center. 

LaGuardia Airport urged people to confirm their flights with airlines. "Due...

LaGuardia Airport urged people to confirm their flights with airlines. "Due to staffing shortages at FAA air traffic control centers along the East Coast, there are major delays at LGA," the airport tweeted.  Credit: Todd Maisel

"We have experienced a slight increase in sick leave at two facilities," the FAA said in a statement. "We are mitigating the impact by augmenting staffing, rerouting traffic, and increasing spacing between aircraft when needed." 

Hours after the problems brought new urgency to ending the 35-day shutdown, President Donald Trump and congressional leaders reached a short-term deal to reopen the government for three weeks while negotiations continue over the president’s demands for money to build his long-promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

There were 14,000 air traffic controllers working without pay during the shutdown, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said last week.

Randy Brown, the national airspace operational manager at New York Terminal Radar Approach Control in Westbury, an air traffic control center operated by the FAA, said he is relieved the shutdown is over.

Brown said while his staffers were not calling in sick en masse like other air traffic control locations across the country, the situation was getting dire and was going to start affecting travel across the country.

“This was going to be a big-dollar problem,” said Brown, who predicted the air travel problems would have affected the Feb. 3 Super Bowl in Atlanta. 

Shortly after lunchtime Friday, LaGuardia’s Terminal C looked like a ghost town. The few passengers headed to their gates moved quickly through security.

Kadi Petridis was returning to Chicago after a few days in Manhattan for a business meeting. She had hoped to be home in time to pick her daughter up from school, but her 2:15 p.m. flight had been delayed at least an hour.  

"If you have Air Force One to jump on, it's not a problem,” Petridis said. “But this affects a lot of people. I blame our president for that.” 

Keith Dumanski, a 30-year-old Coram native who works for a political data analytics company, peered into his smartphone at the Spirit Airline counter. His flight was running some 90 minutes late, which would cause him to miss a meeting in Dallas.

“I give the TSA workers a lot of credit,” said Dumanski, of Astoria, Queens. “At least I’m getting a paycheck. They’re not.”

Before the delays began, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued a letter to Trump on Friday morning calling for an end to the shutdown because of airport security concerns. 

"The effect on our federal airport workers has put the safety of New Yorkers in jeopardy," Cuomo wrote. "Airport personnel dedicated to ensuring the safety of our airports and air travel are missing their second paychecks. As a result, airports across the country, including hubs like JFK and LaGuardia, have seen a rise in the number of personnel calling out of work because of financial limitations." 

Employees of the Transportation Security Administration are also among the estimated 460,000 federal employees who have been working without pay since the shutdown standoff began on Dec. 22.

The TSA, which has been experiencing higher-than-usual unscheduled absences during the shutdown, said Thursday that the percentage of its airport screeners missing work hit 7.5 percent on Wednesday — up from 3 percent on the comparable Wednesday a year ago.

With Martin C. Evans, The Associated Press and Robert Brodsky

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